In the oil-stained industrial district of a hardscrabble Georgia town, the sun beats down on a graveyard of wretched excess. Row after row of partially-stripped hulks drip planet-poisoning fluids on the orange clay, their remains picked over by a motley crew of opportunists. Scores of full-sized sport utility vehicles are ripe for scavengers, their bloated corpses dismembered for whatever might still be of use. What’s killing off the full-framed SUVs?

There are the usual suspects, of course; the kinds of wear and tear that land vehicles of all types in junkyards. Accidents have claimed more than a few. Insurance stickers are often pasted to windshields, and crash damage is readily apparent. The warped sheet metal of the Suburban above is a telltale sign.

Mechanical issues are another reason these trucks get junked, even though the drivetrains tend to be fairly stout. Transmissions are a frequent Achilles’ heel. The extra load of an SUV body, neglect, and the “What’s a transmission cooler?” school of towing philosophy contribute to burnout. The employees of this yard write useful information on the glass of the heaps to aid shoppers: “Runs good,” “Trans bad,” “Motor good,” etc. The (hopefully working) transmission of this Explorer Sport lives on in another Ford product, somewhere.

Still others are claimed by plain old attrition. This five-speed Rodeo rang up mileage well into the six digits before winding up here. The earliest Explorers are more than two decades old now. Even long-lived Toyota products bite the dust eventually. The one 4Runner I saw in the yard was so gutted that its remains were basically unrecognizable. Xterras are also starting to hit the self-service yards, usually without a single straight body panel remaining. I saw two on my last trip, both of which had fallen prey rabid junkyard scavengers in short order.

The typical explanations aren’t enough, though, to explain why so many fairly clean trucks are hitting in the yards. Most of the odometers were in the low 100s, with bodies and interiors easily worthy of used-car retailers. A decent number of them are less than ten years old, and those aren’t the accident victims. Even after the great SUV purge of Cash for Clunkers, in which the Explorer claimed the #1 spot for vehicle trade-ins, there seems to be an endless supply of BOF SUVs flowing into the yards. I gave up counting after I reached four dozen in my last trip, and this was in a relatively small self-service yard in a medium-sized urban area. Where are they coming from?

The words scrawled on the windows are the key. Two magic ones in particular: title pawn. The last and most desperate source of cash for those living on the edge, especially in the South. These trucks have reached the very bottom of the ownership cycle. When their owners are up against the wall financially, they turn to one of the few entities that will provide them ready cash. The offer is tantalizing: give us your title, and we give you a loan. You get to keep the car, at least until you miss a payment and the repo man comes a-calling. Trucks filled with personal possessions and other detritus attest to the sudden parting of vehicle and ex-owner. Looking for owner’s manuals to add to my collection, I swing open the door of a not-particularly-battered Mountaineer (the windshield damage is from the junkyard forklift) with the telltale words scrawled on the side windows. There are clothes everywhere, as well as random paperwork and bills. A smiling toddler looks at me from a photo glued to the dash. This is what life on the edge looks like.

The title pawn companies can’t offload these SUVs fast enough. They get run through auctions, but only the most perfect or desirable examples wind up with used-car places. Otherwise, they go to the yards; scrap prices make them an attractive commodity. It doesn’t matter if they still run and drive perfectly fine. Practically nobody wants an eight-seat behemoth that gets mileage in the low teens on a good day. Cash-strapped large families, the odd contractor, and the desperate are about the only people willing to take on a ten-year-old BOF SUV. This produces the irony of very poor people driving very inefficient status symbols that retailed for well over twice the Federal poverty line not that many years ago. I find another SUV, a Suburban this time. Lots of papers again, including a partially-filled-in kids coloring book in Spanish. I wonder if the pawn companies will let people collect their personal possessions after the car is taken away. I imagine that a lot of people are probably too embarrassed to show up; it’s not like they have a car to get there now anyway.

What people do want, though, is pickup trucks. A running pickup will virtually always have a minimum value above scrap, especially in semirural areas like this part of Georgia. This is attested to by the relative lack of pickups in the yards, compared to SUVs. Only the most clapped-out pickups are sold for scrap; they have to become well and truly useless before they’re discarded. The SUVs in these yards are the most valuable resource available for keeping those pickups on the road. Expeditions, Explorers, Suburbans and Tahoes are raided to keep F-Series, Rangers, Silveradoes and Sierras going. That explains why so many SUVs have their perfectly serviceable mechanical guts yanked in short order, as well as any straight body panels.

As I watch two men yank a radiator out of an Explorer, I realize I’m watching my childhood get disassembled. I’m not sad. At least something useful is finally coming out of the SUV craze. The yuppies in their E30s and Civics probably felt something similar when their parents’ LTDs and Caprices were hauled off to the junkyard. Even so, nobody has really tried to explain how the SUV boom affected Millennials’ outlook on the automobile in general. That I’ll save for part two.

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137 Comments on “Editorial: Confronting the BOF Massacre, Part One...”

” What people do want, though, is pickup trucks. A running pickup will virtually always have a minimum value above scrap, especially in semirural areas like this part of Georgia.”

Same thing is true for South Texas, especially for small pickups. Last year I bought a 1999 Ford Ranger, with 225k miles on it for $2,600. The truck had been hit on the front fender, and needed a new front bumper, had the awful 4 cylinder slush box combo, but it was the only one I could find on Craigslist over a 1 month period that didn’t look like it had a salvage title. Most were going for over $3k. I put a new front fender on it, and drove it for six months. Then I sold it for $2,600 in about a week on Craigslist. I think the KBB value on it was about $1,200.

Must be a different part of the country, here your lucky to find any decent condition fullsize for under 4k, unless that is its a Ford or Dodge, both of which I’ve found to be extremely problematic.
The suburbans had to have had catastrophic failures to end up in a junkyard, low teen MPG surely wouldn’t stop many people from buying, the fuel costs simply aren’t as high as everyone here makes it out to be.

Besides are the SUVs you point out newer than the average car, minivan in the junkyard?

Out in California, I think fuel prices have really done in the Suburbans. A few years ago I bought a 1999 GMC Suburban 2500 with 139k miles on it for $3,500. It was in pretty good shape, and had 4 wheel drive. We mainly bought it as a snow car (we lived in the mountains)for my family (5 kids). Over the three years I owned it, gas approached $5 a gallon more than once, and I don’t think I ever filled the tank completely up, and I maybe put 5000 miles on it. When I sold it, I got $3,500 for it.

I don’t even notice the gas prices anymore. Fill it up when it gets below a qtr tank. Seems like it’s been around $35-40/fillup, so around 11 gallons, I guess it’s in the $3.40 range.

I mean, if gas went to $5, that’s an extra $80/month, so it would probably take a lot more than $5 for me to really take much notice. It would likely just notice when I pay all my bills and dump the excess into savings that my savings rate was dropping.

Hey Hummer, there were lots of fourth-generation GMT 400 SUVs here. But there were very few pickups of comparable vintage. Virtually all of those fourth-gen SUVs have their drivetrains pulled. That green Suburban you see above was marked as running and driving with a good transmission, and had both of them pulled. The same thing was true of the tan Suburban, as well as many other SUVs I observed. I would definitely say that the SUVs in this yard tended to be in better overall condition than most of the cars and minivans, although age was probably a wash. There were far more SUVs with Title Pawn markings than any other kind of vehicle.

A fair to good condition, running late 90’s Suburban can still fetch some worth, especially if it’s 4×4. I had one and it was a great vehicle. It averaged 15mpg in mixed driving and got 21 on highway road trips. Man was it great for road trips. The fuel consumption really wasn’t much worse than most midsize/large crossovers of today.

To see fairly clean examples in the yard, they must have some major mechanical failure or a large combination of smaller problems. As J says, the transmissions were a weak point, I rebuilt the one in mine once. I had to do the rear axle at one point too. A failure in these departments for the average person or even a title pawn needing to pay a shop to rebuild them could send these things to the crusher.

The fuel economy isn’t worse at all. GMC touts the Acadia getting 24 MPG on the highway. Our friends have one and the MPG readout is at 16.4. She drives mostly on the highway and rural 55 MPH zones too.

My experience with GM vehicles in particular is, in stoplight-to-stoplight driving with the A/C blowing and a pile of offspring and associated debris permanently ensconced, you don’t get within spitting distance of EPA City Cycle. See also: significantly undershooting the Highway Cycle at 75 mph into a breeze.

The Hondas and Toyotas we’ve owned tend to get mid-pack fuel-economy test results but hit the Mixed Driving number or better in actual driving.

Does she actually calculate the MPG as miles divided by gallons as well? When we call it the “lie-o-meter,” it’s usually reading unrealistically high, but in some cases (like my mother’s brand-new CR-V), it might actually be low. Yes, a 7.6-mpg difference would be a bit of a stretch, but it might be indicative of a greater problem.

A few years ago, I worked for a place with three 2008 Suburban 4x2s with the 5.3 liter V8. I used to take them out full and top them up before I returned them. Even on all interstate runs, I never exceeded 18 mpg. I don’t drive slowly, but nobody else was getting close to 20 mpg either.

I had an `04 with the same engine and the 4.10 towing rear axle. It could probably just scratch 18mph on the highway (though on Canadian highways the speed limit is only 110kph). City though, I probably never broke double digits. At the time I had an all city commute that was 36kms each way and the truck would average about a quarter tank (25L) to make the complete run.

Mine had the 3.42:1 axle ratio which might have helped it a bit over those with the 3.73:1 or greater, but on a non-stop haul from Ann Arbor, MI to Springfield, MO it returned a certified 21 mpg. We stopped because we got hungry before the truck did.

I was just going to say this. If you’re willing to do a little work and (gasp!) get your hands dirty, any 6.0 Powerstroke will work just as well as a 7.3. Those 6.0’s that can’t be fixed by any decent mechanic have long since gone to scrap. And a 6.0 will, over time, give you just as good towing performance with slightly better fuel economy. The only thing that can’t be fixed is longevity–I’d trust a 7.3 to last me 2, 3, 400,000 miles, but not a 6.0.

I rarely blow my own horn about credentials, but I’m a 6.0L Powerstroke expert. Unless you’re a diesel mechanic, you don’t want one, especially in an Excursion body where it’s harder to get the body off without serious equipment. Yes, you can work on them cab on, if you’re a sadist.

Mechanically inclined isn’t enough for these turds, they just aren’t worth the trouble. Unless you can find one that has already had all the revised HP oil components installed, head studs and gaskets, EGR delete, new injectors, new oil cooler, coolant filter kit installed, a freshly serviced turbo, and a spare IPR in the glove box, don’t bother.

Hey bball40dtw, there was one Excursion in the yard but the drivetrain was long gone. I don’t know if it had the 6.0 or the 7.3 but it still had the Powerstroke badging on the side. It was close to that white Suburban above. I was really surprised to find it, especially because the body and interior were pretty clean.

You brought up the matter of fuel economy, and it reminded me of an incongruity in the whole SUVs-get-bad-mileage thing.

Ever wonder why the cost of gas is virtually the ONLY thing people bitch about with regard to their automotive finances?

Think about it. You NEVER hear people complain about how the monthly payment’s putting them in the poor house, or how the insurance eats up way too much of their paycheck, or how maintenance is going to bankrupt them.

Nope, just the cost of gas. Even though you need to cover the payment, insurance and maintenance to keep the thing just as much as you need the gas.

I’m not a rich man – not even close. But I’ve never cared about the cost of gas, and I’ve driven some real V8 pigs with a heavy foot on long-ass, hour-plus-one-way commutes.

In my buddy’s case, he lives in the country, works in the city, and the kids have a million and one activities to get to.
He traded on a car with similar payments/insurance, so gas was the only savings.

The car payment disappears into the fog of monthly bills, next to the high-interest credit card payment, the HBO package for cable, and the extra data on the cell phone. While the cost of Gas sits right there next to the ‘cost’ of a %17-20 gratuity when you eat out.

Ask most people what their monthly budget actually looks like, and they will give you blank stares. Ask them to break it down weekly with incidentals, it gets even worse.

A good friend just dumped his SUV. His explanation was that he had much better things to do with the extra $100/week for gas (kids, house, savings, etc…). As much as he and his wife love big American metal, it just didn’t make sense in the big picture.

My personal feeling? It’s because when you go get gas you watch the money coming out of your wallet right there on a nice little LCD. It’s in the owner’s face and nice and easy to say “oh! I paid $5 more this fill up…”

The rest? Maybe paid a couple times a year or automatically taken from the bank account or slapped on the credit card bill.

Doesn’t mean I like to pay for gas, just that until I go bare bones car with little insurance I don’t really feel I can legitimately complain how much gas costs.

Remember who the buyers are in this story: low income folks who are not paying that much for an older used SUV. They didn’t pay a lot for the vehicle so depreciation is low, and many of them will do a fair number of the repairs themselves so maintenance and repairs aren’t too terrible, but the price of fuel is inescapable.

My winter beater is one of the aforementioned BOF dinosaurs in the article – a 92 Rodeo 4×4 5-speed. I bought it last summer for a grand, have put about $200 into various maintenance items (brakes, oil changes, etc.) and a $100 head unit so I can have bluetooth. It’s only insured for liability, so the insurance costs me less than $20 a month.

At this point, gas isn’t just my largest expense on the car, it’s essentially my only expense. I wouldn’t be surprised at this point, with averaging $70 a fill-up if I’ve come close to paying more for gas than I did for anything relating to the purchase and maintenance of the vehicle. At this point I’m commuting close to $100 miles a day, so I’m filling up twice a week, and it is starting to become noticeable.

Granted, I’m in an income position that it doesn’t matter to me, and the S2000 I’m trying to keep miles off isn’t much better on gas and takes premium. But I guess what I’m getting at is I can see where someone less fortunate in a vehicle this cheap could really be getting hurt by the mileage.

All I really need is for my wife (who works from home) to learn to drive stick, so then I can commute in her Mazda 3 instead, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Excellent point, I know many people who will happily take on a $400/month car payment to save 5 MPG. Unless you are a long-haul trucker purchasing a new vehicle primarily for fuel savings rarely makes financial sense.

My daily driver sees about 16 MPG in mixed driving. By my calculations I would have to more than double the amount of miles that I drive each year (currently ~8000) to break even on a new car that averaged 28 MPG. This is without taking into account the gains I receive from investing the would-be car payment.

This. Mom’s 2005 Nisaan Murano SL (that she bought in mid-2008) did about 20 MPG average. Last summer, she decided that it was costing too much in gas and wanted to downgrade to a smaller, 4-cylinder car. But the Murano was just about paid off, and so there was plenty of positive quite in it. I told my mom to make sure she understood that she wouldn’t’ save any money at all by taking out a loan on a new or newer car when her current one was paid off, and I made sure she understood that what she *really* wanted was simply a newer set of wheels. She understood, and ended up with a 2012 Sonata Limited.

The bad part, though, is that we all agree the Sonata sits too low and that a compact crossover would have been a better solution.

I bought my current car almost four years ago, and it gets about 18 MPG combined. I go through about a tank every two weeks (I’m fortunate to have a short commute). Being a turbo car, I’m paying over four bucks a gallon for premium.

I figure that by buying it outright, I’ve saved myself at least $30,000 by not having a car payment or full-coverage insurance.

People complain about gasoline because of subjective value theory over time.

The genius of monthly payments is that they remain constant over time. At the end of the payment term, the owner is still paying $400/month, but they are driving a 6 year old vehicle. If they trade-in the car, shortly after paying it off, they get a brand new car for the same monthly payment. Genius! New car for the same monthly payment!!

Gasoline is the opposite. The product remains unchanged, but the price increases over time. Predictably, new car fleet efficiency has increased about 25% since 2007, and much of the improvement occurred before CAFE 2025 was implemented.

I agree it does make a difference, I don’t recall cracking much higher than 25 in an LH. I drove 63 in the 65s, 68 in the 70 mph, 55 on the nose in the 55 on CC, with occasional passing at 75. My brother drove like a maniac on the way back otherwise that figure might have been a little higher.

See, my problem is speed. Both of my cars would get much better MPG if I drove the speed limit on the freeway. I grew up in the free for all of Metro Detroit freeways. stay under 80, and cops don’t even look at you (85 on I-696). I peg CC at 80 and still get passed.

I was wary of playing Speed Racer in the “South” with PA plates. My father got a nice citation in VA when we were younger for something ridiculous like 65 in a 55. He believed the big blue plate over our white Caravan made him an easy target. Bacon in my neck of the woods likes to harass you for similar reasons on state owned roads (which are always 55 or less). Federal highways not as much, I drove 70+ for years to work and never had an issue.

I would sometimes get worked up that a CUV the size of a Suburban would get better highway MPG than my Tribute, the size of a ’91 Explorer, but then I remembered I got mine for a tenth of the MSRP of a Flex.

This, I drive a 97 grand Cherokee limited its got the hd cooler hd towing and uprated springs and full skid plates and full-time 4×4..so I average 13-15 mpg depending on the season
Every time I get the lust for a new jeep I realize that theres no fuggin way ill ever buy a brand new one

Agreed, mine is the even rarer orvis edition dark green with the wheels matching and tan and green heated leather, the only way it could be more 90’s is if zack Morris was driving it and talking on his brick phone

Contractors around here are as likely to have an SUV as a pickup. They like them even older than late nineties. The reason pickups may last longer is leaks. A PU has fewer places for the rain to get in. I see SUVs with all manner of leak fixes.

We buy step vans for lockable storage. The last few have been E350s with the 5.4L. They are often cheaper than SUVs of the same vintage. They also have waaaaaaay more storage space, and I can stand in them.

Hey Landcrusher, the full-size van and the pickup seem to be the vehicles of choice for contractors here. There were a number of full-size vans in this yard, but they were all pretty much used up or crashed. The point about leaks is a good one.

Seeing that the last time any American full size vans received a new chassis was almost 40 years ago the parts are barely above scrap price and these vans are about as complicated as a hammer. Only thing that takes them off the road is rust I expect the plain white American work van will roam the country for at least another 50 years

The sheer numbers of various BOF SUVs sold throughout the nineties and into the 2000’s (probably several dozen million) ensure that a steady stream won’t be getting any less steady very soon.

Plus if you want to get a roughly 10-15-year-old car for a high-schooler, you’re now well into the first wave of crossovers (RAV4, CR-V, Forester, Escape, etc.) that have all the space of a small SUV and better gas mileage/better ride.

Additionally, I dislike the term “massacre,” because it implies innocence on the part of the “victim” (SUVs are neither innocent nor guilty, they just want to do what they were designed to do) and malice on the part of the “offender” (see previous paren., but now substitute “scrapyard” for “SUV”).

These should have gone to Mexico but they’ve been banned, except for 10 year old examples. Exported pickup trucks are always welcome, 10 to 25 years old. SUVs are stuck here to wrought, while used pickup trucks are crazy expensive on the street, and scarce at scrape yards.

Adding to that glut of aging Explorers, Troopers and such, was the SUV boom of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

So it’s not that BOF SUVs are the getting singled out for junkyardvitis, there’s just too many millions on the road still.

Friends do get frustrated looking for decent used pickups, so I direct them to SUVs of similar proportions. The SUV based on the truck they’re looking for is up to 1/3 the price and come well equipped. No stripper SUVs.

They are, on the other hand, expensive as hell to fix when they’re in serious accidents.

Contractors and union trade guys buy those BOF monstrosities and run the hell out of them (I’m looking at you, Suburban). I guess that’s why you see so many of them that are 2 or 3 years old with 90k+ miles on them. I simply can’t justify spending well over 25k for a Silverado wagon with almost 100k on its clock, let alone the ridiculous costs for a brand spankin’ new one.

If I was towing a boat, okay. Done deal. It’s obviously gonna be body on frame then.

If you prefer driving a truck, then I can see the benefits of body on frame for those driving characteristics.

I’ve also seen the middle-upper class housewives driving the Yu-burb-alades, but that’s probably for prestige, and not for much else. By the way, “Stacy’s Mom”, you’re paying a sh*t load of money in gas for that prestige. Just puttin’ that out there :)

Otherwise, I do believe we will see even fewer BOF’s going forward, and the ones remaining will be even more expensive compared to unibodys.

Although I am a fan of all of Toyota’s BOF vehicles. I’ve just never seen one die.

Newer SUVs resolve both those problems, they’re much stiffer then predecessors, combined with seperate frames they are extremely solid feeling.
Also at work I’ve driven a 2011 suburban, every option but the 6.2, can’t stand the damn thing, drives like a car, so you have that problem solved. Unfortunately the SUV crowd is out an SUV and the CUV crowd is more worried about whatever cute-utes in style at any given time, so GM is killing the SUV market singly handedly seeing as they are/were the last company to offer a non-lux fullsize SUV.

And honestly make an excel spreadsheet, the gas mileage of a fullsize SUV vs a fullsize or even midsize CUV isn’t very substantial. And then you have a much better resale value at the end of the day.
I agree, BOF are getting fewer, the people that want and need them are priced out, the people that just want to spend 70 large on something different dont care if its uniframe, BOF, or a wooden frame.

BOF SUVs – a loser most ways. Yeah, some of them had the “cool” factor, but they are all fuel-hogging tanks. Add to that cramped, poorly-designed interiors that are filled with all sorts of lumps, bumps and other so-called “styling touches”, and you have a huge vehicle any average CR-V or similar vehicle will out-perform in all practical ways that matter except perhaps comfort.

Our daughter has a 2007 Trailblazer, bought new that she still loves. It is pretty comfy for a tank and I like driving it on rare occasions, but that thing would bankrupt me at 16-20 mpg, especially on my commute. Although my 2012 Impala isn’t exactly a fuel-sipper, but at an average of 28.5 mpg, it makes me feel better!

At 15k per year, her TB getting your minimum of 16mpg would use <$3,500 of fuel a year, using gas at 3.70 which I believe is a little above avg ATM.
15k at 29mpg in your impala is slightly more than $1,900 a year.

No, but pissing away $1600 annually is not very smart. As the owner of a BOF SUV with a Hemi I can almost guarantee that it will be replaced with some kind of CUV or Unibody SUV. I actually use the “utility” part of my SUV but now I’m now a little older and smarter; it is a lot harder to rationalize paying for power that I am not using.

Plus, the attitude that an extra $100 to 150 per month is chump change is toxic to your personal finances. It only takes a few extra commitments like that to ruin your budget or wreck your retirement savings.

“If you watch your pennies the dollars take care of themselves.” -Ben Franklin.

Nice chronicle of the remnants of the SUV craze. Never thought about title pawns but they obviously are big business at least in the south and probably any other area that was hit hard in the past 5-6 years. Here in Maine a lot of large SUVs get purchased by recent immigrants because of their low prices.

There is little reason to have a 4WD Suburban if you live in the Southern half of the country with little snow to deal with. A Suburban is too big/insufficient ground clearance for offroad driving in the mud.

Since moving south I have had three 4wd trucks and virtually never engaged the front axle. My latest vehicle is a 2wd SUV and it has been fine.

In the South when the weather is bad enough to require 4wd you are better off staying home because the roads really don’t get plowed (why bother; the sun will be out the next day!). You are far too likely to get run into by somebody who does not know/forgot how to drive on snow and ice. Stay Home, take the day off.

South of the Mason Dixon line it is hard to justify 4wd unless you are a farmer, contractor, or live in the mountains.

My beater rodeo has 4×4 with locking diffs, and it is awesome. I bought it a year ago and have only engaged the system 4 times: once on the in-laws’ farm, twice in snow, and once in the parking lot of a muddy concert venue. All except one of the snow days I probably would have been fine staying in 2wd mode.

Most people don’t and will rarely ever need true 4×4 on a vehicle that doesn’t get used off-road.

I go to a Mexican supermarket to get tacos and tamales on Sunday morning before the local church lets out.I sit at the window and watch the chebby suburban and gmc Yukon xl roll in. An “immigrant” family is not mom dad two kids and a dog. It mom dad grandma grandpa and 3-5 kids plus aunts and uncles. What else are you going to haul 3 white suburban families in?

Unfortunately frame rust in the snow belt can do one in too, we have a mint 12 year old tahoe with a perfect straight body never damaged body and in above average condition but a frame that is beyond shot, has about 90,000 miles. It’s sad since the frame will give way LONG before the body, engine or other essentials.

I have a chance to buy a one-owner 12 year old V8 Explorer from a friend. Good price and the automatic transmission has already been rebuilt, but I don’t like the combination of truck ride without much of the truck utility. Unbolting the running boards and changing the muffler so the V8 engine note is more audible would make it a little less like a minivan alternative.

I’ve always felt that way about 1st and 2nd Gen Explorers. Not much in the way of capability or capacity, with all of the fuel consumption. Yet they couldn’t make enough of them in the 90’s and every used one I’ve ever had sold within weeks of putting it for sale.

Interesting, I’d consider picking up a BoF monster with a Class III or bigger hitch to leave in the driveway for trips that are too long for an EV, or require carrying more stuff. I would prefer a diesel in that situation tho.

BoF SUVs are great for offroad or towing, but if they aren’t being used in that capacity, they should be in the junkyard. Always makes me a bit sad to see 3rd/4th Gen GM C/K trucks in the yard, though.

BOF is really an old hat architecture and the numbers on the road are shrinking as manufacturers have gotten away from that design. The existing ones are getting older and ending up in salvage yards. Granted, there are some that are still built (Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon) but not like there was 10+ years ago.

Also, their lousy gas mileage coupled with gasoline prices that are not going to go back down (the price is real now, the normal standard and not going to improve) serves as an impetus as well.

This along with the notion that pushrods are obsolete are the two biggest automotive myths going. If this were the case pickup truck manufacturers would have switched to unibody long ago. SUVs are trucks with a wagon body, anything else is a minivan for people who can’t be seen driving a minivan.

I guess I’m the world’s last BOF aficionado. I bought a new 2012 Pathfinder because it was pretty much the last mid-sized BOF SUV left (except the 4runner, but since the Pathfinder was a leftover I got it for almost 10k under sticker).

I do haul stuff pretty regularly – I have a side eBay and flea market business, so it’s not unusual for me to go to an auction and leave with a full load of stuff. I prefer having a non-unibody vehicle for that.

Before the Pathfinder I had a Ranger, which was solid, but there were times I wanted an actual backseat. I had a tonnue cover on the Ranger, a full cap probably would have been more useful, but being able to haul people or stuff in a covered area is nice.

I’d have to think the BOF vehicles would be better in off/rough road situations, but for most of the market that is strictly on road, unit construction is the way to go.

Back in 1999 my wife was looking for a new car, and Explorers were among those that she was looking at. I really didn’t want her driving a BOF SUV, back then they had no stability control and most likely not all that good of crashworthiness. Her cousin showed up one day in a Lexus RX300, and she decided that was what she wanted. I think that was a better choice for her, even though it did cost $8000 more I’m glad she got it.

Yes I have one and I off-road it, as good Cherokees are far and few between and they had serious rust issues the price on survivors has gone up substantially. On rthe other hand theres cheap rusty and trusty zj’s everywhere now to mod to your hearts content, with 0 guilt when you break out the sawzall

There is at least one more, I will always own a BOF SUV, they are just too useful not to. I love being able to load my SUV up with camping gear, friends, bikes, and head to a remote trail-head or campsite. If I want to stop for lunch on the way home everything is securely locked – unlike a pickup and unlike a crossover I won’t rip the bumper off at the first football sized rock I encounter.

I still don’t understand the crossover craze, they offer almost all of the downsides of a true SUV with none of the benefits. Manufacturers have tricked consumers into believing they are somehow more efficient when in reality the only thing they are efficient at is inflating profits by allowing manufacturers to recycle car platforms and sell them at ridiculous prices.

Crossovers give us ride height and cargo capacity without the weight and consequent gas guzzling of BOFs. Since the only enemies they apparently make are boy racers, offroaders and contractors, how can they lose? It’s just demographics; moms and Boomers versus the fringe.

Sales figures confirm the full size SUV “massacre”. Like all crazes, the novelty wears off.
It’s sad that people with a tight budget buy these things because of price. Gas prices affect you pay check to pay check and so are hard to budget for, especially on a tight budget where disposable income (gas money) is sensitive to a vehicle that sees far bigger per month cost changes as the gas prices change than say a small sedan. Add to that the weak transmission or other big ticket maintenance costs.
It’s a low initial cost, long term high risk endeavor.

A quick search of Denver Craigslist (dealer only) between $1000 and $3000 produces a lot of vans and SUV’s, but also a lot of Tauruses and other unwanted midsizers, some long lived Imports, and old Kia’s. So there are cheap to operate options at Buy Here-Pay Here operations.
I think there may be some ignorance as to the real fuel cost, and maintenance cost between a Jimmy and a 5spd Protégé. I bought some “on the edge” friends, a $700 Tercel (the cheapest driving, rust free car on CL at the time) and the mechanically inclined husband has dragged on for six months the clutch replacement, so the car isn’t on the road yet. He did however win a small settlement during that time, and spend $5,000, on upgrades to his YJ, and him, his wife, and his mother, commute in the YJ and a wheezing Jimmy, and are in a bad way.

When I went to the local U-Pull-It to look for Thunderbird parts, I was kinda surprised at how many Durangos they had in the yard. Maybe I just wasn’t looking for the Tahoes and Explorers, but there was a ton of Durangos there.

I was there with a friend looking for Dakota parts, maybe that’s why I only saw all the Durangos.

Once the Durango switched to the 4.7 v8 it got saddled with a crap tastic transmission that sends them to the yard. If you can find a non rusty one with a 318 or 360 v8 its as reliable and cheaper than anything else in its price bracket

All of them were 97-03 models, so that means most of them probably had a 318 in them. There were 3.9 Durangos made but I’ve never seen one, and R/Ts seem to hold a little bit of value compared to normal Durangos.

Lots of parts stripped off them, though the very few 97-03 Dakotas the yard had were stripped even barer.

*The big boys (Expedition/EL, Navi, Escalade, Yukon/Suburban) will always find homes because the people who could afford to feed them then can still afford to feed them now and can either rationalize or – to the shock and awe of the Brown Diesel Euro Hatch Mafia – honestly justify their need to have one.

*I don’t miss late-90s/early-00s Explorers. Truly banal junk. Worse than Blazers by FAR and about as bad as second-tier entries like the Rodeo, Montero Sport, etc. People who used to drive these things around town like my girlfriend in her ’00 Explorer XLS 4-door now drive things like a 2010 Tribute Sport I got for her at the sale for $7900 and sacrifice 15% of the Explorer’s cargo volume (maybe) for literally TWICE the urban mileage. Plus, its not a clunky, wallowy, ball-joint-consuming mule.

Now her previous ’88 S10 Blazer 2-door? THAT was worth keeping if it hadn’t been totalled.

Actually for a beater SUV, an older rodeo is one of the best value propositions on the road today. Most people have forgotten that Isuzu even existed, and the prices reflect that compared to similarly aged blazers and exploders, at least around me.

Towing was already mentioned, but if you need to tow a boat, you can’t beat a 4×4 BOF SUV. Pulling a big boat out of the water can really make 4×4 invaluable. And automatic transmission also is a plus in this situation.

No big loss here, these things are dinosaurs and the few newer ones are very expensive. Yes these are good for hauling boats and trailers but most will never be used for that. Did you see any Hummers in this salvage yard? Next the full size crew cab short bed pickups will be hitting these salvage yards. It is not just the cost of fuel it is also that these types of vehicles are too big and cumbersome for most to drive all the time.

@DenverMike–Work trucks will always be in high demand but not the luxury clad crew cab pickups that most suburbanites are buying. I am starting to see a shift away from them where I live, where many are trading them in on the CUV which is now the popular vehicle which one day will become a little less popular. One of my nieces got her husband to trade his 4 wheel drive Silverado on a CUV. No I don’t think the used crew cab pickup with the short bed will go the exact same way as the SUV but they will end up on pay day lots and be bought by those who really cannot afford to keep them up. A heavy duty crew cab work truck is the exception and will be in demand especially if it has a Cummins, Power Stroke, or a Detroit Allison. The contractors, farmers, and those who make a living using these work trucks will keep them patched up and running till there is nothing left to patch up and then they will buy used replacements as soon as they can find one that is not an overloaded luxury barge. There are so many crew cab pickups on the market that a discount of 8 to 10k has become the norm. You can get a new pickup for not much more than one that is a few years old with much higher mileage.

Ok, ready to tear this one apart. I own a small car dealership in the Midwest.

Around here, the quality full size SUVs outnumber the new ones because they are outright cheaper to own. In 2000, a new, normal equipped Chevy Suburban set you back about $35k. Now they are $52k. Average income for the middle class has gone down , leaving people little choice other than to buy used, which drives up the prices of used cars. The 4.6 Fords and 5.3, 5.7, 6.0 Chevys easily get 300k on the original drivetrain with minimal care. Anybody can fix them, parts are cheap and plentiful.

The same cannot be said for most vehicles made in the last 5 years. The gas mileage advantage of a newer tech SUV does not make up for the high repair costs. Every make has its own special computer needed for simple diagnostics. Mercedes has lead the way with this, many dealer franchises doubling their labor rate to absorb the costs of all the special equipment needed. Having a monopoly has alot to do with it as well. Parts prices for anything other than normal maintenance have gotten downright ridiculous.

Because of this, there is absolutely NO way I see myself still in business in 10 years. I’m already taking regular punches in the gut having to pay for labor at the MB or BMW dealer for a simple diagnosis or reset after my competent mechanic wastes a day trying to figure something out but lacks the tools. Did you know on a Mercedes W211 that you have to reset the AC pressure switch every time you evacuate and recharge the system, and only the STAR (mercedes diagnostic) computer can reset it? I sure didn’t. My poor mechanic wasted hours trying to figure out why the AC wouldn’t come back on. $140 later (1 hr billed) for 5 minutes worth of plugging the computer in and hitting reset on a tech making $20 an hour and I’m back in business.

Sure I can buy a STAR used or a Chinese copy for $1000, but how long will that last without trouble? How will I update it? This is not just Mercedes, even Chrysler and Chevy dealers need six figures worth of special tools and equipment to properly repair their vehicles. When GM and Chrysler dealers’ franchises were terminated during the bankruptcies, terminated dealers struggled to sell off these special tools. Tools which they went deep into debt to purchase to provide competent service to their customers. They were never offered a refund for this equipment.

The vehicles photographed in this article are mostly junk. Old 4.0 V6 Ford explorers and their Mercury equivalents drove like crap when new. Rodeos/Passports (same vehicle) were junk when new. Expeditions with the 5.4 liked to shoot out their spark plugs, stripping the threads in the head, after an amateur tune up. The only 2000-newer suburban photographed was wrecked. The older Suburban looks to have its engine living on in another.

The cash for car title cars are almost always junk. These people have horrible credit and their vehicle is on its last legs. They drive it down there for the $1000 loan they can get and have no intention to pay. Their credit is already trashed so what’s one more collection?

“Practically nobody wants an eight-seat behemoth that gets mileage in the low teens on a good day”

Complete and utter BS. I sell at least 5 a month to all walks of life…. it’s only that low because because I can only get my hands on a few at a time.